Page 117 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

Sophia spins toward the door. “Come in!”

It's not her office. She's done this since she was seven.

Camille comes in carrying three shadowbox frames, each one matted in cream, the ultrasound images sitting centered inside them, clean and quiet and exactly what I asked for when I called from the car on the way back from the clinic.

Sophia makes a sound that doesn't belong to any language.

She crosses the room in three strides and takes the frames from Camille's hands before she's fully through the door, holding one up to the light, then the next, turning them over like she's checking for something, then clutching one to her chest with both arms.

“These are amazing,” she says, voice cracking. “These are the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.” She throws her arms around Camille, who stumbles one step backward and then steadies and pats her firmly on the back, laughing. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Camille says, catching my eye over Sophia's shoulder with an expression of warm, professional amusement.

“Thank you, Camille,” I say.

She excuses herself with the tact she's been deploying on my behalf for eleven years, closing the door behind her.

Sophia turns back to me still holding the frame to her chest, cheeks wet, beaming so hard it's making her face do something it doesn't usually do, something completely open and unguarded and young in the way she only lets herself be when it's just us.

“Am I getting a little nugget sibling?”

I pause. “They'll be a girl or a boy. But yes.”

“Dad.”

“I know.”

“How do you feel about that?”

I look at the frame she's holding, the small shape in the center of it, and think about the call I was on when she walked in, the inheritance language, the health coverage, all the structural, practical ways I've been trying to make sure that child is taken care of before they're even real enough to hold.

“Good,” I say. Which isn't the word. But it's the one that comes out. “How do you feel becoming a big sister?”

“Good,” she repeats, and laughs, wet and delighted. “This is the greatest thing ever for my best friend to officially be part of the family. Dad, this is—” She shakes her head. “Four of my favorite people are having a baby. There aren't enough words.”

She crosses the room and wraps both arms around my neck the way she did when she was small, and I put my arms around her and hold on, and for a moment neither of us says anything.

She pulls back first, and I take the frame from her gently, and I look at it for a moment the way I've been looking at it since Camille brought them in, the way I keep expecting the feeling to level off and it doesn't.

Sophia crosses her arms, watching me with that look she's had since she was seventeen.

“So what were you doing in here that was such a big secret?”

“Hmm? Nothing.”

“Dad.”

I glance at the documents still open on the screen. She follows my eyes.

“Is that legal paperwork?”

I tell her. The contract extension, the health coverage, the inheritance amendment, all of it. She listens the way she's learned to listen, without interrupting, which she definitely didn't inherit from me.

“Have you discussed any of this with Harper?” she asks, when I've finished.

“Not yet. I wanted it drafted first.”

“Dad.”